Chapter Seven – Lark
I step into the kitchen and stop just inside the doorway.
Holt stands at the stove, one hand braced on the counter, the other moving through a pan with ease. Eggs. Toast. Something simple. Something steady. The kind of routine that doesn’t ask questions.
“Morning,” he says without turning.
“Morning.”
My voice sounds normal. Too normal.
I move farther into the room, setting my bag down near the chair, letting my hands find something to do—pulling out a plate, reaching for a fork—anything that keeps me from standing still long enough to feel the weight of yesterday settle back in.
The smell of butter and pepper hangs in the air. Holt slides a plate across the counter toward me. I step closer at the same time he reaches for the pepper.
Our hands brush. It’s nothing. Barely contact. The back of my fingers against his. But it lands heavier than it should. Immediate. Sharp.
I pull back first. Too fast.
“Sorry,” I say.
“You’re fine.”
He doesn’t move right away. Neither do I. The moment stretches. Just long enough to notice it. Just long enough to know we both felt it.
I grab the pepper instead, shaking it over the eggs like I didn’t just lose my grip on something as simple as reaching across a counter.
Holt clears his throat softly and reaches for the salt this time, like we’ve silently agreed to adjust the choreography.
We eat at the counter. Not in silence. Not in conversation either. Somewhere in between. Comfortable if I don’t look too closely at it.
“Back to the inn today,” I say after a minute, keeping my focus on the plate in front of me.
Holt nods once.
“That’s what I figured.”
“There’s more to pull up in the back hall,” I add. “And I want to check how far the damage spread under the stairs.”
“Then we start there.”
Simple. Direct. Safe.
I set my fork down.
“I’ll drive.”
Holt glances up.
“No, you won’t.”
I blink.
“That wasn’t a suggestion.”
His mouth curves slightly. Not amused. Not argumentative.
“Still no,” he says.
“I have my SUV.”
“And I have a truck that can actually carry what we need.”
“I’m perfectly capable of driving.”
“I didn’t say you weren’t.”
“Then why—”
“Because it makes more sense.”
The answer is easy, which makes me push harder.
“I don’t need you to make things easier.”
His gaze holds mine. Steady.
“You don’t,” he agrees. “But I’m going to anyway.”
Something in my stomach flutters, and I look away first.
“Fine,” I say.
But it doesn’t feel like giving in. It feels like choosing not to fight something I don’t yet fully understand.
We clean up quickly after that. No lingering. No extra conversation. Distance held carefully in place.
The drive back to the inn is quieter than it should be, like something followed us out of the house and settled into the space between us without asking permission.
Gravel shifts under the tires as we pull in, the sound louder than usual in the stillness, and I find myself watching the building before I even reach for the door handle.
The Carrington Inn stands exactly where I left it. Unchanged. And somehow—not.
Smoke no longer clings to the siding the way it did the other night, but I can still see it if I look closely enough.
In the warped trim along the back corner.
In the faint discoloration near the windows.
In the way the structure holds itself a little too rigid, like it knows how close it came to losing something it wouldn’t get back.
I step out of the truck before Holt can come around to my side, my boots hitting the ground with more purpose than I feel, my hand already reaching for my bag like momentum alone will carry me through whatever this day turns into.
The porch steps creak under my weight as I climb them, the wood soft in places, uneven in others, each flaw more obvious now that I’ve seen what’s underneath it.
I don’t pause at the door. Don’t give myself time to take it in all over again.
If I do—I’ll hesitate. And hesitation feels dangerous here.
Behind me, I hear Holt’s boots hit the steps, slower, heavier, more measured. He doesn’t rush. Doesn’t fill the silence. Just follows, steady and present in a way that makes it harder to pretend I’m doing this alone.
I push the door open. Step inside. The inn doesn’t feel smaller when we step back inside. It feels sharper. Like every flaw has been outlined overnight, every weakness made easier to see now that I know exactly where the fire started, exactly how close it came to taking something bigger with it.
I move through the front hall without slowing, setting my bag down near the base of the stairs, flipping open my notebook before the door fully shuts behind us.
“We start with the back hall,” I say, already moving.
Holt doesn’t argue. He follows. That’s becoming a pattern I don’t quite understand yet. Not agreement. Not obedience. Something more deliberate.
He lets me lead. But he doesn’t let me do it alone. The difference matters more than I want it to.
I set my notebook down on a narrow table that somehow survived everything and crouch near the section of wall I marked yesterday, pressing my palm lightly against the wood.
I shift, reaching for the pry bar Holt hands me without comment. Our fingers brush. It’s quick. Accidental. Still enough to send a small, sharp awareness up my arm that I ignore with more force than necessary.
“Here,” he says, nodding toward the seam near the baseboard.
“I see it.”
“I know you do.”
I angle the bar into place and apply pressure. The wood resists because of course it does. Nothing about this place gives easily.
I adjust my stance, bracing my foot more firmly against the floor, leaning into it with controlled force until the board finally gives with a low crack.
The sound echoes down the hall and Rook startles. I pull the loosened section free and set it aside, already reaching for the next.
“You’ve done this before,” Holt says.
Not a question.
“Yes.”
“Here?”
“No.”
That gets his attention, and I glance up to see he’s watching me more closely now.
“Where?” he says.
I shift back onto my heels, pushing hair out of my face with the back of my wrist.
“Everywhere,” I answer. “With my dad.”
The words come more easily today, which surprises me.
“He took jobs like this,” I continue, gesturing vaguely around us. “Places people thought were too far gone. Places no one else wanted to touch.”
Holt leans one shoulder against the wall, listening.
“He said the worse it looked, the more it meant someone had given up on it too soon,” I add.
“That why you’re here?”
I meet his gaze.
“Yes.”
There’s more to it than that. There always is. But that’s enough for now.
He nods once like he understands more than I said out loud.
We fall into a rhythm after that. He handles the heavier pulls, the sections of damaged wood that require more force than leverage. I move ahead of him, marking what needs to come next, stripping back layers that hide deeper problems, making quick decisions about what stays and what goes.
We don’t talk much. We don’t need to. The space fills with sound instead—wood splitting, tools scraping, boots shifting against the floor, Rook pacing in uneven loops that get wider the longer we work.
The sun moves across the hall in slow increments, light shifting from one wall to the other, catching on dust we haven’t cleared yet.
Eventually, Holt straightens, dragging a hand across the back of his neck, his shirt clinging slightly from the heat.
“You need a break,” he says.
“No I don’t.”
“You do.”
“I don’t need—”
“Lark.”
I set the pry bar down harder than necessary.
“You don’t get to decide that.”
“No,” he agrees. “But I get to point out when you’re about to push past the point where you stop being useful to yourself.”
I stare at him.
“I’m not—”
“You haven’t eaten since breakfast,” he continues, cutting me off without raising his voice. “You’ve been moving nonstop for hours. And you’re about two minutes away from making a mistake that costs you more time than stopping now would.”
I hate that he’s right. I hate that I know he’s right before he even finishes saying it. I hate that I want to argue anyway.
Instead, I reach for my water bottle and take a long drink. Then another. He watches me like he’s waiting to see if I’ll fight him again.
I don’t. This time.
“Five minutes,” I say.
“Ten.”
“Five.”
“Eight.”
I narrow my eyes. Yet he doesn’t back down.
“Fine,” I mutter. “Eight.”
His mouth shifts. Not quite a smile, but close enough that I notice.
We end up sitting on the back steps. The same place as yesterday. The same view. The same stretch of damaged ground that looks less chaotic now that it’s been cleared and more deliberate now that I know what I’m dealing with.
Rook settles between us, his body angled toward me but his head turned toward Holt, watching him with a level of curiosity that didn’t exist yesterday.
I rest my forearms on my knees, letting my hands hang loose, my fingers still carrying the faint vibration of work.
“I miss coming with my dad on jobs like this,” I say after a minute. “I’d sit on whatever part of the floor was least likely to collapse and sketch layouts while he worked,” I continue. “He’d ask my opinion like it mattered. Like I wasn’t twelve and guessing half the time.”
“It did matter.”
I glance at him.
“You don’t know that.”
“I do,” he says simply. “Because you’re still doing it.”
I look back out over the yard.
“I thought this would feel different,” I admit.
“How?”
“Like I’d… prove something.”
“To who?”
“Myself,” I say finally.
Holt shifts slightly beside me, his arm brushing mine just enough that I feel the contact before I process it. He doesn’t move away immediately. Neither do I.
“That’s a hard person to convince,” he says.
“Yeah.”
“You ever consider you don’t have to?”
I let out a quiet breath.
“That’s not really how I work.”
“I figured.”
I glance at him.
“And how do you work?”
His gaze stays forward.
“Same way,” he says.
Of course he does.
By the time we head back inside, the air has shifted again.
Not cooler. Just heavier. More aware. We work another few hours.
Slower this time. More deliberate. Less about tearing things out and more about setting up what comes next.
It gives me space to think and that might be a mistake because thinking leads me right back to the same place every time.
Him.
The way he moves through a space like he belongs in it. The way he watches without hovering. The way he steps in without asking and doesn’t make it feel like I’m losing control when he does.
We don’t leave until the light fades. This time, when Holt says we’re done, I don’t argue.
That surprises both of us. I can tell by the way he looks at me.
“What?” I say.
“Nothing.”
“You’re staring again.”
“I’m observing.”
I roll my eyes.
“That’s my line.”
“Get a new one.”
I shake my head and grab my bag.
We step out into the evening air together, Rook weaving between us, the inn standing behind us in a state that still feels fragile but less overwhelming than it did this morning.
Progress. Holt locks the door behind us. Checks it, then checks it again.
“You always do that,” I say.
“Do what?”
“Double-check.”
He shrugs.
“Habit.”
“Or control.”
His gaze shifts to mine.
“Same thing.”
I hold it for a second longer than I should, then look away. Because the biggest mistake I could make right now would be to let Holt know that he’s affecting me.